On Friday, June 27, 2025, I Spent Some Time With Some Of My Favorite Immigrants

On Friday, June 27, 2025, we traveled to Lexington to finally get new batteries in my wife's power wheelchair. They had been dead for about two weeks and it was a bad time. We needed a break and, for a while we got one. After spending time with the technician and his wife at the wheelchair company, getting the batteries installed, and then moving on to our favorite Vietnamese restaurant where despite living about two hour away we are regulars. We love the food, we really like the manager and his entire staff. We got done eating and then traveled to a little Asian food store for one item of a chile paste which we cook with sometimes. I will no longer name any immigrant, immigrant owned business, or other identifying characteristics of a business due to the danger which is being presented on a daily basis to ALL IMMIGRANTS by TRAITOR Trump and the Criminal Syndicate which poses as a "cabinet". We spent little time in the business and, it is my impression, that the family which owns it are American citizens. I chose the one item I was searching for, looked around the store and figured I didn't need anything else. When I walked to the counter to pay, the wife of the family was working in the store area away from the counter. Immediately, her young son who is about 7 or 8, in my estimation, moved from another spot behind the counter to the register and rang up my purchase, took my debit card and, with some help from his mother, completed the transaction, thanked me in perfect English. I was instantly taken back to my own childhood growing up in a country store in first Floyd County Kentucky and then another in Knott County Kentucky. I had also been trained to work in the store from a young age as soon as I could count change. I was flooded with memories and instantly told the little boy that I had also grown up in a store with my parents, how much I had enjoyed working in the store, and I tried to let him know, in no uncertain terms, that it is a good thing to be a young boy working with your parents in a family owned store. Yes, it is summer and school is out of session. I have no knowledge that the boy is ever in that store on a school day, or that he is ever working in any dangerous capacity, or that he is ever doing anything that makes his providing help to his parents is illegal. It is a parental choice they have and should always have to bring their children to the store with them, teach those children to work as young as they are capable of doing whatever job the parents choose to have them do. It is valuable training to help a child become a contributing citizen in the world and a worker who is committed to being a part of the working class. It is a damn fine thing to be a young boy working in a family store and I am an expert on that subject. When I was three days old, my parents carried me home from the Lackey, Kentucky, hospital and placed me on the counter in our store and, as I lie about sometimes, told me to "greet customers until you are big enough to do something else. I am proud of that boy and I am proud of his parents.

The photograph above is of my father Ballard Hicks sitting in our family owned country store at Dema, Kentucky.

"Wilderness" by Robert Penn Warren, A Novel Of The Civil War and Early American Immigration

"Wilderness" is a 1961 novel by Robert Penn Warren. The protagonist is a Jewish immigrant from Germany who has been born with a club foot but desires to immigrate to America and "fight for freedom". The story begins in his native country where he decides to leave for America after realizing he has little hope for a good future at home. His father was killed in riots in Berlin while fighting against government troops. He has been supported and assisted by an uncle who is also a rabbi. As Adam Rosenzweig prepares to leave, he is given several religious objects by his uncle which he carries, but uses little, during the length of the novel. The uncle also provides Adam with the address of an old friend who had previously emigrated to America and become wealthy as a businessman after beginning his life as a pack trader. Pack traders, many of whom were Jewish, traveled the roads of America carrying and selling a multitude of common household items in large backpacks. In order for Adam to get to America, he signs on with a human trafficker who is providing immigrants to both sides of the Civil War to fight as soldiers. The most important object Adam owns is a very well made leather boot which a cobbler friend made for him to help compensate for is club foot. While on the ship to America, the other men learn of Adam's disability and he becomes the "least of the least"on the ship since he is now known as being very unlikely to be accepted as a soldier. He is now forced to do the most menial chores aboard ship to compensate for his passage and the captain intends to actually prevent him from leaving the ship and retaining his as slave labor for the return voyage to Germany. But one of the crew gives Adam some advice just before the ship comes to port in New York which allows him to escape the vessel. He lands in New York with nothing and a very powerful scene ensues in which Adam, lost, alone, and hungry, finds the body of a black man hanging from a lamp post where he has been lynched in ongoing race riots. Adam finds himself the next day being dragged into one of those riots which is engaged in the murder of another black man. Adam finds himself being pursued by some of the rioters but manages to escape by running into the door of what turns out to be a house in which several black people are hiding. The rioters break in and Adam finds himself in the basement hiding in the dark where no one's race or color can be recognized. The rioters flood the basement and Adam finds himself being pulled above the waterline by a black man who turns out to be an employee of the man Adam was told to seek out when he got to New York. When the rioters disappear, the black man takes Adam, who is very ill, to the home of their benefactor, the rich Jewish trader. The trader has had a son killed in the Civil War and offers to make Adam his adopted son. Adam refuses the offer and is, instead, placed with a very abusive and coarse trader who needs a wagon driver to drive a wagon load of supplies south to sell to whichever troops of either side they might contact. The group consists of Adam, the trader Jed Hawksworth, and his black employee Mose who is actually an escaped slave as the book reveals in the long run. The three characters make a slow trip south to connect with fighting troops and are a truly odd collection of equally damaged characters who have simply fallen into each other's company. Mose, who has been savagely beaten by previous owners, becomes a friend of Adam but eventually kills Hawksworth and runs away. Adam, fearing that he will be blamed for the murder, buries Hawksworth in the woods, takes one of the wagons, and heads out to find Union troops which he can join to live out his dream of "fighting for freedom". I won't spoil the ending for you by fulling disclosing what happens from here on out. I will say that I have read several of Robert Penn Warren's books and this is just as good a novel as any the man who won two Pulitzer Prizes ever wrote. It addresses issues of war, racism, hatred, segregation, immigration, disability, and discrimination as well as any novel I have ever read. It is a powerful book which has fallen by the wayside of American Literature even though it is a fine piece of work by a man who should have been another of America's Novel winners. Robert Penn Warren is, in my opinion, just as great a writer as Hemingway, Steinbeck, Buck, or any other American who has ever been described as great. If you read the book, be forewarned that the novel does use the language of the time in which it was set and you will encounter several of the epithets which are not allowe in polite society today. But the novel is far greater than any of its detractors claim it to be simply because they are prejudiced against the language of America in the 1860's. Read it and you will see that I am correct.

"The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair, Reading A Great Book Many Years Too Late!

 

 

 

 

Despite how much literature, and a great deal of the "great literature" I have read in my life, I had never read "The Jungle" or any other book by Upton Sinclair until just now.  A couple of months ago, my sister-in-law in Wisconsin suddenly mailed me a copy of "The Jungle" with a note that said "Roger, I tried to read this book, but got frustrated right away.  I think you'll have more patience with it."  On some levels I was surprised by the book and note and, on some other levels, I was not.  She is a pretty voracious reader, rather brilliant with near perfect scores on her college admission tests when she came out of high school almost 30 years ago.  But I have noticed over the years that her reading material tends to be a bit toward the general adult fiction level.  I had asked her about why she didn't like the book or "got frustrated" with it and never seemed to get a succinct answer.  

 

 

Anyway, my wife Candice decided when it was time for us to choose another book for our joint reading effort in which I read aloud while Candice washes the dishes each day and we alternate in who chooses the books.  When she finishes washing the dishes, I dry them and eventually put them away each evening.  I have to say I was also somewhat surprised that Candice chose this book but thought that it might have been curiosity about what her sister gave up on.  But she also tends to like more "great literature" when I do the reading aloud than she would usually read on her own.  

The first thing I noticed about the book is that it is a markedly dark novel, about as dark as anything I have ever read.  I don't cull much in literature and don't usually say anything is too dark for me.  But this novel is incredibly dark, moving consistently from one disaster among the central characters to another without ever having a bright spot or a lucky day last any longer than the next sunrise, if the sun rises at all the next day.  But it is a fine novel with excellent character development, plot and counter plot, and a couple of definite goals from the beginning to the end.  I would say that the primary goal of the novel, which I suspect is true of everything Sinclair wrote, is to promote socialism as the best form of government for the United States.  In Sinclair's defense, I would also say that his secondary goal was to write a good to great novel which would be accepted widely by the reading public.  I have no crow to pick with his first goal since I have known several devout socialists in my lifetime, and I would even agree that socialism is a far better form of government in its pure form (which can never be fully achieved) than several other forms of government.  As for his second goal, I came out of the novel firmly convinced that Sinclair had definitely achieved his second goal with flying colors. This is a fine novel!  Yes, it is as dark as the deepest corner of an underground coal mine, but it is also a fine novel.

The protagonist, Jurgis Rudkus, and his family are the central characters, native Lithuanians who emigrate to the United States and find themselves living, if that is  not too strong a word, in the meat packing neighborhood of Chicago.  The novel was published in 1905 and covers about a ten year period before and after the turn of the century.  Sinclair chose to give the neighborhood around the meat packing companies, slums, and railroad yards as Packing Town.  It is filled with immigrants from several different countries and cultures who struggle to survive on a daily basis in which the meat packing companies operate as the Meat Trust in conjunction with the Railroad Trust, two entities which are each comprised of several companies who work in a cohort in order to control and suck the lives out of their employees just as they take the lives of trainloads of cattle and hogs.  The book served to educate the American public about the outrageous practices of the meat packing industry and the multitude of ways in which those companies live off the lives of everyone they come into contact with, whether they are employees or customers.   They own the local public officials, judges, police, and nearly every human who comes into contact with the meat packing industry.  They are a predatory entity both as individual companies and as a loosely constructed conglomerate.  

Jurgis and his family suffer one debilitating event after another from the packing industry, local real estate companies, the police and courts, and each other.  His wife dies in childbirth because the family has no money for a doctor.  His only child drowns in the mud and water surrounding their home. He is jailed multiple times and eventually blacklisted because he beat his wife's supervisor who had lured her into prostitution.  Another child in the family is frozen nearly to death walking to work in a Chicago winter and eventually killed and eaten by rats after being locked into his work site at the end of the day.  But eventually, Jurgis is converted to socialism, gets a job in a hotel owned by a socialist with a social conscience, and become a devout evangelist for socialism. The novel ends with about 20 pages of a lengthy sermon about the virtues of socialism and the predatory nature of capitalism.  Yes, it's dark as hell, but it's a fine novel.  If you haven't ever read it, give it a chance and commit before you begin it that you won't give up, as my sister-in-law did, before you have read at least fifty pages. 

This Is The Battle I Was Trained To Fight!

America is in the midst of the worst constitutional crisis in the history of the country.  I had considered saying that we are in the worst constitutional crisis since April 12, 1861, the day the Civil War began.  But after careful consideration, I realized that even during the Civil War, the forces which were fighting against the United States of America were not controlled by a foreign power.  They were not fully committed to destroying Democracy in North America.  They were not fully committed to destroying the US Constitution.  Today, we are in a battle in which the individual who illegally occupies the White House is fully committed to destroying America, American Democracy, the US Constitution, and everything they all represent as he works to support his Russian master and the ideas of his heroes such as Adolph Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Adolph Eichmann, and every other Fascist and dictator who ever lived.  These are the worst days in the history of the country, worse than the Civil War, worse than World War I, worse than World War II, worse than the Great Depression.  We are literally engaged in a battle which will decide if this country will survive as the greatest democracy in the history of the world.

Statue Of Liberty--Photo by Ellis Island

So the question becomes what will each of us do in response to this widespread Fascist attempt to destroy America.  I don't know about you but I will fight it to my dying breath.  Just as the title of this blog post says 'This is the battle I was trained to fight'.  I have been incredibly lucky to be born in the greatest democracy on the face of the earth and so were most of you. And, of course, some of you were born in other countries and chose to immigrate to America for a better life in a better country.  I applaud each immigrant in America and know that the great majority of you are also deeply involved in this battle for the country you loved enough to leave everything and everyone you had ever known to become Americans. Each immigrant citizen in America is under attack today and living in fear of seeing the destruction of the constitutional process which made you an American.  I was incredibly lucky to have been born into a family which was composed of intelligent, politically aware people who were able to understand an attack on our country and to train me to understand it also along with being able to see and understand any future attacks long after the people who raised me were dead.  I have been incredibly lucky to have found, wandered into, or been divinely guided to other teachers, mentors, heroes, and friends who expanded on that early education I received at the feet of my elders.  Collectively and individually these people gave me a base of knowledge, morals, values, and resources which make it not only suggested but mandatory that I stand up for what is right in the face of any attacks which occur to destroy that which is valuable to and life sustaining for a democracy.  I sincerely hope each of you who read this has also had some level of the same type of mentoring, instruction, and moral training to teach you the same things.  At this time of incredible crisis in America, it is necessary that every American citizen with enough intelligence and morals to understand the nature of the intensifying attack on our country and its sacred institutions  must be willing to stand up, stand out, speak up, and speak out on a daily basis to confront the incredibly Fascist and anti-American ideas which are arising from the Radical Right and from Russia and their minion in Washington.

Albert Stewart--Photo by Lexington Herald-Leader

I have often written on this blog about some of the people I have encountered in life who have reinforced the democratic and patriotic values which my parents instilled in me.  Probably the first such person I met was William Howard Cohen when I was about 14 years old in Upward Bound on the campus of Alice Lloyd College.  Bill Cohen became my professor, mentor, and friend and taught me both by example and by didactic methods to stand up for what is right.  Bill Cohen went out in Eastern Kentucky to strip mines and lay down in front of coal trucks in his fight against strip mining and eventually lost his job at Alice Lloyd College because of it.  But because he was right, he never stopped speaking out against wrong.  At about the same time, I met Albert Stewart who also taught at Alice Lloyd College but fought his fights in a much quieter  but just as firm a manner.  In his effort to save his family farm on Yellow Mountain in Knott County from destruction by strip mining, he eventually willed it and gifted it to the University of Kentucky to prevent that destruction.

Robert "Bob" Snyder--Photo by Southern Appalachian Circuit of Antioch College

A few years later, I became a member of a group of people in Beckley, West Virginia, who have gone on to become some of the most respected writers, teachers, and social activists in all of Appalachia.  The Southern Appalachian Circuit Of Antioch College in Beckley was created and directed by Robert "Bob" Snyder one of the best poets and most brilliant minds Appalachia has ever produced.  He also put together a tremendous group of professors and students at that time in the early 1970's who are often spoken of as a group when Appalachian writing and social activism are discussed.  In that group of professors was Don West, P. J. Laska, Rod Harless, and William C. "Bill" Blizzard.  Each of those people further reinforced my commitment to do the right thing no matter the circumstances or the opponent.  I learned valuable lessons from each of them along with several of the other students in that group.

Don West--Photo by Georgia Encyclopedia

Don West had been born in North Georgia as the son and grandson of poor mountain farmers.  He grew up to write, teach, preach, do social action work, and to influence dozens of other American social activists.  He co-created Highlander Center in New Market, Tennessee, with Miles Horton.  He and his wife Connie Adams West created the Appalachian South Folklife Center in Pipestem, West Virginia.  Don fought for the UMWA in Harlan County Kentucky in the 1920's, worked in the defense of Angelo Herndon in Georgia in the 1930's, and saw himself fired from Oglethorpe University due to his social activism.  He was run out of Georgia under a death warrant for his defense of Herndon, saw two homes burned out from under him, and was ostracized in many ways in many places.  But Don West never stopped fighting for social justice.  He also never stopped working to teach anyone he met about the importance of doing the same thing and never stopping in a fight for the good, just, correct thing in a crisis. By the time Don West died in 1992 at 86, his battles had earned him an obituary in the New York Times and a biography in the encyclopedias of two states, Georgia and West Virginia. 

Roderick Mansfield Harless--Photo by the Harless Family

Roderick Mansfield "Rod" Harless was also one of those professors at the Southern Appalachian Circuit of Antioch College.  Rod had grown up in a large family which produced both him and a brother who was a long term official in the United Mine Workers of America.  Rod was quiet, low key, and a wonderful writer.  His "Prince of New Rock" satire series about the candidacy of Jay Rockefeller for governor of West Virginia is an unknown and unrecognized classic. He was a social activist who was deeply committed to always doing the right thing in all circumstances and passed that commitment on to those who knew him.

William C. Blizzard--Photo by Kimberly Clear

William C. "Bill" Blizzard was also a member of the faculty at the Southern Appalachian Circuit of Antioch College after having spent most of his life as a writer at the Charleston Gazette  which fired him for refusing to cross a press men's picket line at the paper during a strike.  Bill Blizzard would likely have chosen to die rather than cross a picket line.  He was the son of William Blizzard, the leader of the United Mine Workers at the Battle of Blair Mountain in Logan County, West Virginia.  Bill Blizzard published a book, "When Miners March" about the West Virginia unionization effort late in life and devoted his life and much of his free lance writing to passing on the socially active values his father and the United Mine Workers had passed on to him as a child.

P. J. Laska--Photo by Roger D. Hicks

P. J. Laska was also a key member of the faculty at the Southern Appalachian Circuit of Antioch College and has been my professor, mentor, and friend since we met in the 1970's.  He is the one living member of that incredible group of teachers and activists who came together in Beckley along with a sizeable group of their students who have continued the good fight in nearly all causes we have encounter.  Laska was a finalist for the National Book Award in Poetry in 1976.  I have been blessed to have known all of these people I have listed so far in this blog post.  But I have been especially blessed to have had P. J. Laska as a friend and mentor for the past forty plus years.  Today, at 80, he is still fighting the good fight just as many of his former students are.  After knowing and having been mentored by this group of people, how could I do anything except keep up the good fight until it is won just as the American Revolution was won, just as the Civil War was won, just as all of our greatest challenges such as the Great Depression have been won?

Dr. Daya Singh Sandhu--Photo by Sikhnet.com

I have also been blessed to know several immigrants who have influenced me deeply over the years.  I have written about some of those people and their contributions to America in this blog and I will continue to do so.  Recently, I have met two new immigrants who work in two of my favorite restaurants who are also inspirations to me.  After having known people like Dr. Elif Arioglu-Oral, Dr. Daya Singh Sandu, Dr. Surjit Dhooper, Dr. Noor Loynab and his wonderful wife, Amena Loynab, all of whom are immigrants, how could I not continue to fight the good fight to keep the open door of America open to all who are willing to come and work to make this country better?  But I have also been influenced by many other immigrants who came to America, became citizens, and spent their lives working as horsemen, waiters, laborers, and other jobs which make a country function successfully?  And, of course, how could any loyal citizen of this country not fight to their dying breath against the nameless TRAITOR who now lives illegally in the White House based on his TREASON with Russia?  I call upon every person who reads this blog post to join in this greatest fight in American history and to continue unflinching until the battle is won.  Do not allow our country's greatest enemy to destroy the US Constitution, American Democracy, and America herself as they are working daily to do?   

Dr. Elif Arioglu-Oral, M. D.--Photo by U of Michigan Health Net

Some Immigrants I Have Known

As I have watched the steadily increasing coercion and terrorism being directed at immigrants by TRAITOR and International Terrorist Trump, I have thought frequently that I needed to write this blog post.  Yet I have put it off time after time since January 20, 2017.  Due to current circumstances in American politics, I can no longer procrastinate about this post or this issue.  I will insist on saying that I have not avoided speaking my mind on this topic to anyone when the subject arose and I have always been willing to say that it is my considered opinion that any immigrant who wishes to come to America is worth more to this country than the TRAITOR and International Terrorist Trump.  During the course of their first year in America, nearly all immigrants will pay more in taxes to the US government than TRAITOR & International Terrorist Trump can prove he has paid in the last twenty years.  Any immigrant who is being forced out of the country by the current illegitimate and TREASONOUS Russian Owned Criminal Syndicate which lives in the White House would be welcome in my home to which I will never invite any Right Wing Radical Repugnican supporter of TRAITOR and International Terrorist Trump. 

Now that I have prefaced this post about some of the immigrants I have known, I will get down to the meat of the writing about these people who have crossed my trajectory and, almost without exception, enriched my life.  I honesty do not remember clearly the first immigrant I met but I remember stories I heard in childhood from old Appalachian coal miners about the immigrants they worked with in the mines of Eastern Kentucky.  My father, Ballard Hicks, and my maternal grandfather, Woots Hicks, both worked many years in the mines of Floyd County Kentucky and worked with many Italian, Hungarian, Polish, German, Romanian, and Czech immigrants who had often been specifically recruited and brought to the US to work in the mines because the coal companies of the time wanted hard workers who had no connections in the immediate community which meant they had no significant support system other than the coal company and, possibly, other immigrants from their own country.  In the stories I heard miners tell about these immigrants,  I do not remember any particularly disparaging remarks about them from anyone.  I heard numerous stories about how hard they worked, how they often got paid less than American citizens for the same work, and how well they were respected by their American coworkers.  The great majority of these immigrant miners stayed in America for the rest of their lives and most achieved citizenship while working an incredibly difficult job for companies who often used the old statement that "a mule is worth more than a miner.  When a mule dies, you have to buy another mule but you can always hire another miner if one dies." Companies which applied that type of thinking always applied it equally to all their miners whether American citizens or immigrants.  

Many of the descendants of these immigrant miners achieved great things in America based on the values which their parents taught them.  Daniel Mongiardo, descendant of Italian stone masons who were brought to Hazard, KY, by coal companies, became both a doctor and the Lieutenant Governor of the state.  One of my professors in the 1970's was Peter J. Laska, the descendant of Ukranian immigrant coal miners in Northern West Virginia, achieved a Ph.D. degree and was a finalist for the National Book Award in Poetry. His book of poetry "D. C. Images And Other Poems" was a finalist for the award in 1976. Peter Laska is one of my closest friends, professional mentors, and role models.  In Logan, West Virginia, I became friends with Monty Stagnoli, the descendant of Italian coal miners who had been brought to Harlan, KY, by coal companies and became a grocery store manager for a major chain. I have also come to know the highly respected West Virginia novelist Marie Manilla whose novels and short stories are read and studied all across America. Her novel "The Patron Saint Of Ugly" won the Weatherford Award as the best Appalachian novel of 2014. All of these people achieved more than most of their classmates who were descended from people who had been considered Americans for far more generations.  

But we should discuss the actual immigrants who have been my friends, mentors, professors, coworkers, and, in some cases, heroes and role models.  In the early 1980's, when I was working as a door to door salesman in Logan, WV, I was incredibly lucky to meet a family of immigrants from Afghanistan.  I sold a vacuum cleaner to Mrs. Amena Loynab, the wife of Dr. Noor Loynab, who was practicing medicine in Logan, WV.  I was often brought into their home in Whitman, WV, for supplies or repairs related to that vacuum cleaner.  The home was always spotless and I was always made to feel extremely welcome there.  When I expressed an interest in the Koran, Amena Loynab loaned me her personal Koran wrapped in a bright yellow scarf to protect it.  Every time I ever went to that home, I was invited in, placed at the table and offered food which almost always included the best baklava I have ever eaten.  I always remember that Amena Loynab's aged father, who spoke only Arabic, would be in the house and would always pass through when he realized I was there.  He would always say nothing to me but would give a short stern speech in Arabic to his daughter which I always assumed was a reprimand about allowing a man inside the house when her husband was not present.  But, regardless of whatever he said, I was always brought into the home and treated as a respected guest. Dr. Loynab was then and still is a highly respected physician in Logan who always treated anyone who came through his office door regardless of their poverty or any other negative factors.  I will always cherish the memories I have of this immigrant family.  

In 1992, I was living and working in Lexington, KY, and, for about two years, I worked on a horse farm which was a profession I had practiced in the 1970's and 1980's for nearly twenty years. I had returned to horse farm work in 1992 temporarily as I was searching for my second job placement in the human services professions.  During that time, I worked with two Mexican immigrant brothers who were some of the best horsemen I have ever known.  They also had a third brother who, as an immigrant, became one of the best, most highly respected and sought after, farriers in Central Kentucky, an area where a second rate blacksmith cannot last a week.  These brothers were friendly, open, honest, compassionate people and I will always remember an occasion when one of them gave me a dozen fresh ears of corn from their personal food supply simply because he wanted to do something nice for my wife and I.  I will always remember these brothers fondly.  

In the early 1990's, my wife Candice began to develop serious neurological symptoms which eventually caused her to spend the last eighteen years in a wheelchair.  We eventually learned from Dr. Joseph Berger, M. D. , the current Associate Chief of the Multiple Sclerosis Division of the University of Pennsylvania and retired Chairman of the Department of Neurology at the University of Kentucky, that he was unable to diagnose the cause of her problems.  Dr. Berger referred us to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, where we traveled regularly for nearly five years only to eventually learn that Candice's problems were due to a rare and untreatable genetic anomaly.  But from the first day we arrived at NIH, we were blessed to know and Candice was blessed to be treated by Dr. Elif Arioglu Oral, M. D., a young, brilliant female Muslim physician from Turkey who at the time was on a fellowship at NIH.  Today, she is an Associate Professor at the University of Michigan School of Medicine.  She was one of the best, most intelligent, most compassionate, and most honest humans I have ever known. 

When I was working on my Master of Education Degree in Counseling and Human Development at Lindsey Wilson College, from 2002 to 2005, I was blessed to know and learn from Dr. Daya Singh Sandhu, Ph.D.   Dr. Sandhu came to America with degrees from a college in his native India in English and went on to switch from English to Counseling, and, in the process, became one of the most experienced, best respected professors and authors on the topic of mental health counseling in all of America. He went on to earn three further degrees including his doctoral degree after coming to the USA.  He has authored, co-authored, edited, or co-edited at least thirteen books on counseling related subjects most of which were published by the American Counseling Association Press.  He also has published fifty professionally refereed articles in counseling journals and has published at least eighty chapters in professional books edited by others. Dr. Sandhu is an Indian Sikh, a religion which is often misunderstood and villified by Americans who know nothing about it.  But Dr. Sandhu is one of the most compassionate, professional professors I ever had to the good fortune to know.  When I met Dr. Sandhu, he was teaching a course in substance abuse counseling in the masters degree program during his summer vacation from his full time job as Director of the Counseling and Human Development Department at the University of Louisville, a job from which he subsequently retired to join the full time faculty at Lindsey Wilson College.  There were about fifteen of us graduate students in that course.  On the last day of class in that substance abuse counseling course, he took the entire class to lunch at Pizza Hut out of his own pocket.  He was available, professional, compassionate, and served as a mentor to many of us in that graduate cohort.  I will always cherish the time I able to spend under his instruction and mentoring and I firmly believe I was a better counseling professional for the remainder of my years of practice because I knew Dr. Sandhu.  

This list of immigrants I have known and benefited from includes a housewife and mother, two medical doctors,two common laborers in the Thoroughbred horse business, a farrier in the Thoroughbred business where unskilled blacksmiths were quickly shown to the farm gate, a couple of college professors, and all of them were excellent people.  They included Catholics, Muslims, and a Sikh.  I would trust any of that group of immigrants in any situation more than I ever could anyone willing to work for TRAITOR and International Terrorist Trump.  I would invite them into my home gladly and I never would do the same for anyone who ever worked for the TRAITOR and International Terrorist Trump.  Any and all of those immigrants is more valuable to this country than any person, citizen or not, who is stupid enough to believe the lies coming from the Russian Owned Criminal Syndicate which lives in the White House today.  Any of those immigrants is much more highly developed morally than anyone who would participate in the separation of children from their parents and agree to incarcerate those children in tent cities in the desert.  It is long past time for this country to come to its senses and stop this rapid political, moral, and social degeneration at the hands of a Russian Agent who committed TREASON in order to steal an election.